Immigrant Laborers Feel Stranded in Pacific Northwest as Day Jobs Dry Up

By SAM HOWE VERHOVEK

ACOMA, Wash., Jan. 26 — Finding work was not a problem for José Padilla for most of the last two and a half years. Landscaping in Phoenix, laying carpet in Denver and, most recently, packing apples near Wenatchee in central Washington.

"Everywhere I went there were jobs to do," said Mr. Padilla, 26, from a village in Jalisco Province in Mexico.

But as he stood in the wind and rain the other morning outside a day laborers' center here, part of a line of more than 60 men, he found himself confronting a new reality.

There was no work that day, just as there had been none in three of the last four days he had shown up at the site.

A few painters and contractors drove up, looking for workers at rates from $7 to $10 an hour. But those spots were quickly filled by others with more experience in such jobs.

With the economy in particular decline in the Pacific Northwest, where Oregon and Washington have the two highest unemployment rates in the nation, hundreds of immigrant laborers have left agricultural areas on the eastern side of the Cascade Mountains in recent months, looking for work in the urban areas on the western side.

But with the market for such unskilled work drying up, many are finding little or no work at all, and some describe themselves as virtually stranded in the cities.
Larry Davis for The New York Times
Men in Seattle looking for jobs at Casa Latina, where immigrants have been matched with contractors and homeowners seeking workers.

The problem is most visible in Seattle, at places like the Casa Latina Day Workers Center, a gathering place that has for four years matched Mexican and Central American immigrants with contractors and homeowners.

For much of that time, with the Puget Sound economy roaring, the workers seemed to have the upper hand.

Almost anyone who showed up at Casa Latina could find a job for the day, even if the worker was in the United States illegally.

Today many more men show up each day, competing for fewer jobs, said David Ayala, lead organizer at the center.

"We had one day last week when nobody showed up at all," Mr. Ayala said, meaning that no employers at all stopped by despite the long line of ready workers that begins forming before 6 a.m. each day.

Several men waiting for work the other day said they were homeless. Others said they had a place to sleep only because of the indulgence of relatives.

Most said they could no longer send money to their families in Mexico or Central America — their reason for traveling to the United States in the first place. Others said they felt stuck here, with no way out.

"I came here because I heard there were jobs, jobs, jobs in Seattle, $10 an hour or more," said Raúl, also 26, from San Pedro Sula, Honduras, who declined to give his full name because he is not a legal immigrant.

"Now I would do anything to just be able to go home," Raúl said about the city where his wife and his son and daughter, both 6, live. But with a bus or plane ticket costing $600 or more, Raúl wondered whether he could ever afford to go.

Others who had worked on the farms of central Washington said they had traveled to Seattle temporarily, looking for work in the fallow winter months, and planned to return to the other side of the mountains in the early spring.

In past years, they said, they had even gone home to see their families for the winter or, perhaps, traveled to Florida or Texas, where farm work could be found.

But many said they were remaining in Seattle, because they could not afford to go elsewhere or because they were worried about security crackdowns along the border and in the United States.

"I think it's harder just to travel around the country," said a 32-year- old at Casa Latina who gave his first name as Pedro.

He has found work over the last three years even though he is here illegally and has no photo identification. Last year, he took a bus to Missouri to work in a poultry-processing plant.

"I've heard that Greyhound wants to see a driver's license or a passport or something," Pedro said. "Nobody asked me for anything then."

Guadalupe Gamboa, Northwest regional director for the United Farmworkers of America, said many workers in central Washington had moved to the Seattle-Tacoma region for the winter to look for work rather than risk going back over the border.

Even here in Tacoma, where the influx of migrant workers is less discernible than in Seattle, officials and advocates for the homeless said they had nonetheless noticed a definite increase in recent months, part of a general strain on services.

"We are easily serving double the number we did last year," said Michael Sterbick, director of Operation Keep 'Em Warm and Fed, a group that distributes food, clothing and tarpaulins to the poor in Tacoma.

Mr. Sterbick's caseload has increased, from 60 a day to as many as 135, with about one in eight being Hispanic.

"I see a lot of fresh faces, people that are young and strong, and they just want to work," he said.

But Mr. Ayala, back in Seattle, said he was seeing a growing number of workers who have grown destitute and demoralized.

"The street changes you," he said, describing several regulars at Casa Latina who recently became homeless and who have found only sporadic work despite showing up at the job center every day.

"You wind up feeling like a mouse, just trying to figure out where to go at night," Mr. Ayala said. "You forget your whole goal in coming here to begin with. Now you're just trying to survive."

Has any one ever figured out just how much cheap latrino labor
costs our country:

For every latrino invader working, there is an American out of work, usually a White Male American born

That latrino's bitch and bastards are on welfare collecting food
stamps, a medical card, a check, subzidized housing, services
from churches and gov't agencies.

The White man, out of a job does not qualify for unemployment and is on welfare, same as above (except for the bitch and bastard remark), maybe, if he is lucky, but usually his wife has divorced him because he can not support his family any more.

A small amount of farmers and developers profit from cheap labor,
but they don't pay for the increase in welfare payments, every tax
paying working stiff pays the increase, more money out of your
pocket at the end of the year.

Then there is the increase in the jewdicial budget for translators
to tell the latrinos his jail time is suspended and it only has to pay
a minimal fine, while the White American Male pays full fine and
court cost while he does the time.

I can go on, etc....
you get my point, diversity does not pay off in the long run for
America because there is no real money in the economy.

Sounds like the foundation for a take over. Force the Latrino's out playing their game with a twist. Run then off, make them afraid to show up at the day worker centers. Hell, make the contractors afraid to use the day workers. Make a citizen base so stongly against the use of immigrant labor, that it would be financial suicide to even think of hiring one.